


Still

by thimbleoflight



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Body Paint, M/M, is there a name for that kink of being painted on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:13:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleoflight/pseuds/thimbleoflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second time Sanzo tried to paint spells on Goku's torso was... different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still

**Author's Note:**

> You know that scene in Reload where Sanzo is painting Goku??? Yeah.
> 
> Yeahhhhh.

“You need to hold still,” said Sanzo. “If the lines are shaky, it’ll be less effective.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Goku. “I can totally do that.”

If Sanzo noticed how high Goku’s voice was, he didn’t say anything about it.

The brush dragged across his shoulder blades, over the ridges of his spine. Goku had to suppress shivers each time, clenching his fist. This wasn’t the first time Sanzo had needed to do a spell like this, but Goku couldn’t remember it being so… torturous back in Kami Sama’s forest. But Hakkai had been around.

Besides, things had been _really_ different back then.

The paint trickled down, cold where the wind blew against it.

“My legs are falling asleep,” Goku said, trying to find a better position to sit in. The leaves and dirt crunched under his knees, and he brushed the dirt off his hands from when he’d supported himself on them. He couldn’t see Sanzo, but he heard no movement, only Sanzo’s scoff at his inability to sit still.

Sanzo would be at his waist any moment now. Goku swallowed, anticipating it. It was almost too embarrassing to feel good.

When Sanzo got to his waist, he almost yelped at the feeling, but caught it at the last moment. The strangled noise he made was probably more awkward than yelping would have been.

“What the hell was that?” asked Sanzo.

“Ticklish,” grunted Goku.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Sanzo. “If you laugh and mess up my lines, I’m leaving you behind and getting Gojyo. Turn around.”

This was the part Goku had been dreading, but he turned around anyway.

Sanzo started at his shoulders, working from a reference in his mind that he occasionally closed his eyes to think about more. Sometimes he drew with the other end of the brush in the dirt, testing out designs. Sanzo had a face like the statues Goku had seen back at the old temple where they’d lived, when he was doing stuff like this. A serene kind of expression, something you couldn’t call a smile but which wasn’t a frown. Goku liked him best when he wasn’t grumpy or annoyed, but that didn’t mean Sanzo was ever lighthearted or soft. This was the closest he got.

Given something to do, Sanzo would visibly relax. It was one thing to see it when he was reading a newspaper or some business for the temple. It was another entirely to see it directed at Goku—no, it was worse than that even, because it was directed at Goku’s _body_ , and the paint trickled down where hands could have been and the brush felt like kisses along his sides, and it was all Sanzo, and Goku both wanted it to continue forever and also to never, ever let Sanzo know that it was happening.

Sanzo drew a line up Goku’s neck, flicking the brush and splattering paint on the underside of Goku’s jaw.

He had to notice. He had to notice Goku swallowing. He would paint Goku’s chest. Could somebody see a heartbeat from the outside, feel it through a paintbrush? Goku sure as hell hoped not.

His jeans were too tight. He stuffed his shirt in his lap, holding it close, and hoped. His hands brushed against the hard-on he was hiding, and he wanted so bad to just… deal with it. How long could it take to paint his chest? The back had gone pretty quickly. Maybe the front would go faster? Maybe he could pretend he needed to take a piss and just hide for a bit.

It was wrong anyway. Sanzo didn’t know. Sanzo wasn’t doing this on purpose, and that made it wrong.

Sanzo worked in silence for a minute more, until he got lower down on Goku’s torso. Goku was forming a plan to get away without Sanzo noticing, when Sanzo spoke.

“Sit up a little so I can do your stomach, and why are you holding your damn shirt in your lap? It’s covering your stomach, I need to paint that.”

Before Goku could say anything, Sanzo yanked the shirt out of his lap where it was covering Goku’s stomach.

“Oh.”

Goku’s face went very, very warm.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was different last time. I didn’t want to make it weird.” There wasn’t anything he could say, really.

“We don’t have to do this,” said Sanzo, in a very strained voice. Goku could not look him in the eye.

The worst part was, it wasn’t the sensations by themselves that made him feel like this, but Sanzo looking at him, in pieces, as a whole canvas to be painted over with spells. Not as an annoying kid, but as a team member.

“It’s just, l—” _didn’t realize it would be like that—_

“No,” said Sanzo. “Don’t try to explain. I’ll get Gojyo and use him for the spell. We can tell them you don’t want to. That it won’t work. Whatever.”

“Is that your only problem?” asked Goku, knowing he would probably never even come close to this level of honesty with Sanzo again. “That you think I don’t want to? Because I do. I really, really do—Sanzo, it feels… good.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Sanzo shortly. “It’s wrong.”

Oh, great. Now it was a _shame_ boner, and even that knowledge didn’t make it go away.

“Uh, why?”

“This isn’t just about the paint. I’m older than you,” said Sanzo, flat-voiced. Goku wanted to reply that he hadn’t _thought_ it was about the paint, but Sanzo kept going. “I’m your guardian, essentially. Get up. Go get Gojyo, tell him the spells I want to use don’t work on you.”

All the while, he gripped the brush in his hand, so tight his knuckles turned white, having ceased to paint Goku.

Goku didn’t get up.

“You gave that up when you left us for that Hazel guy,” said Goku. “I promise you, I can take care of myself now. I can set boundaries. But if you don’t want this to happen, say so. Do you, or don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” repeated Sanzo. “Not happening.”

“It does matter,” said Goku. “It matters a lot to me.”

His first instinct was to reach out and touch Sanzo, close a hand around his wrist and look him in the eye, but Sanzo didn’t do so good with that kind of thing. So Goku held back, and gave Sanzo a minute to decide.

Sanzo cleared his throat.

“This isn’t a good time for that discussion,” said Sanzo. “And I’m not…”

“All right,” said Goku, wishing he had Sanzo’s level of mastery over his own expression. He thought he probably did pretty good, especially because Sanzo wasn’t looking at him any more, and he kept his voice pretty even. “I’ll go get Gojyo. No worries, all right?”

He got up, and it took him a minute to remember the way back to the camp, and he was about to head off when Sanzo stopped him.

“Wait,” said Sanzo. Goku froze. Sanzo continued. “I don’t want to give you the wrong idea, but I’d rather do this with you. I _want_ to. I just can’t… promise you anything else. Not now, maybe not ever.”

Goku sat back down.

“You don’t have to promise me anything at all,” said Goku.

Sanzo exhaled, obviously relieved, and wet the brush with paint again.

Sanzo pressed the brush to his chest. Goku held still, though it became harder to bear. Especially when Sanzo, stone-faced, pressed the brush lightly against one erect nipple, for a half second longer than necessary. Goku drew in a sharp breath, pushing into it, and Sanzo drew a spiral, stretching over Goku's breast. Sanzo brushed the center of the spiral with his thumb, smearing the paint a little so it spread, and dotting it around the spiral, resting his other fingertips lightly on Goku’s chest, and his thumb was so rough and the paint was so _cold_. Goosebumps prickled up and down Goku’s arms.

Goku could have sworn it wasn’t on purpose, except that Sanzo glanced up at him to see how he reacted.

“Fine?” asked Sanzo.

“Way better than that,” said Goku.

Sanzo smirked, and kept painting.


End file.
